That's just it... It had nothing to do with one's actual skin or color.
Just like being "stiff necked" has nothing to do with your neck, or being stiff.
But then this is what critics are reduced to, kindergarten playground taunts.
It hasn't just been critics who have interpreted the Book of Mormon as speaking of a skin of blackness as being skin that darkened. Here's one of the passages:
2 Nephi 5
21 And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
Theway, I think that what I objected to in your post isn't that you choose to interpret this as having nothing to do with actual skin color, but that you seem to be equating someone who isn't LDS who interprets it as skin color as being critical and taunting. There have been numerous LDS leaders and writers who have interpreted this passage as meaning actual skin color changing. However, my impression is that in recent years the LDS Church has been moving away from this interpretation.
Here are some quotes of LDS who equate this with skin color:
Symbolic of the withdrawal of the Spirit from their lives, a “skin of blackness”
[2] came upon the rebellious Laman, Lemuel, their families, and those sons and daughters of Ishmael who chose to affiliate with them (2 Nephi 5:21). There can be no question but that their altered skin color was a miraculous act of God; it cannot be understood in purely metaphoric terms, nor as being nothing more than the natural consequence of prolonged exposure to the sun. Nephi was explicit that “the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:21; emphasis added).
http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/book-mormon-second-nephi-doctrinal-structure/7-lamanite-mark
"You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation ...When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people"
Journal of Discourses 7:336
I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today… The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos.
Spencer Kimball,
http://scriptures.byu.edu/gettalk.php?ID=1091&era=yes
For Elder Hunter, the change in the skin color is absolutely physical and remains a distinction throughout Book of Mormon history. He provides no explanation for how this alteration occurs, other than to note that it comes through God. Rodney Turner, LDS professor of religion, attributes this pigmentation change to God’s direct and miraculous action:
Symbolic of the withdrawal of the Spirit from their lives, a “skin of blackness” came upon the rebellious Laman, Lemuel, their families, and those sons and daughters of Ishmael who chose to affiliate with them (2 Ne. 5:21). There can be no question but that their altered skin color was a miraculous act of God;
it cannot be understood in purely metaphoric terms, nor as being nothing more than the natural consequence of prolonged exposure to the sun.4 (emphasis mine)
http://www.fairmormon.org/perspecti...-the-book-of-mormon-mean-by-skin-of-blackness
On December 6, 2013, the LDS Church released a statement that includes the following:
Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.
24
https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood
I acknowledge that this is the current doctrine of the LDS church. However, when others apply a literal interpretation of skin of darkness in the BoM, I think that there are valid reasons why they have done so, and would not necessarily equate that with a playground taunt.
